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::INSIGHT::

What we see, we have already "read" as our visual cortex filters our perceptions down through the doors of our experiences. What we read is immediately transposed perceptually to some kind of image that is compatible with our imagination. Here you will find much to read, and lots to see.

Monday, January 31, 2011

The students are seated,one to a table,at tables for two,ears wired,laptops humming,cell phones buzzing,fingers texting,iPods thumping,toes drumming,email flashing,lattés cooling,textbooks open,reading for an examin Issues in Contemporary Culture 102.

Thomas R. Moore

Posted over on the Writer's Almanac "At the Berkeley Free Speech Cafe" by Thomas R. Moore, from The Bolt-Cutters

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Christian Charles Philip Bale (born 30 January 1974) is an English actor. In addition to starring in big budget Hollywood films, he has played in films produced by independent producers and art houses.

Bale first caught the public eye at the age of 13, when he was cast in the starring role of Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun. He played an English boy who is separated from his parents and subsequently finds himself lost in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. He has received critical acclaim for his performance in The Fighter, earning him several awards including the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He is also well-known for portraying Bruce Wayne in the new Batman films Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. He was nearly unrecognizable in THE MACHINIST; losing like 60 pounds for the part.

In 1999, Bale played serial killer Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, director Mary Harron's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' controversial novel. Bale was briefly dropped from the project in favor of Leonardo DiCaprio, but DiCaprio eventually dropped out to star in The Beach, and Bale was cast once again. He researched his character by studying the novel and prepared himself physically for the role by spending months tanning and exercising in order to achieve the "Olympian physique" of the character as described in the original novel.He went so far as to distance himself from the cast and crew to maintain the darker side of Bateman's character. American Psycho premiered at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival to much controversy. Roger Ebert condemned the film at first, calling it pornography and "the most loathed film at Sundance," but gave it a favourable review, writing that Harron "transformed a novel about bloodlust into a movie about men's vanity." Of Bale's performance, he wrote, "Christian Bale is heroic in the way he allows the character to leap joyfully into despicability; there is no instinct for self-preservation here, and that is one mark of a good actor."

On April 14, 2000, Lions Gate Films released American Psycho in theatres. Bale was later approached to make a cameo appearance in another Bret Easton Ellis adaptation, The Rules of Attraction, a film loosely connected to American Psycho, but he declined out of loyalty to Harron's vision of Bateman, which he felt could not be properly expressed by anyone else In 2000, he again played a villain, this time in John Singleton's Shaft.

Bale has played an assortment of diverse characters since 2001. His first role after American Psycho was in the John Madden adaptation of the best-selling novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Bale played Mandras, a Greek fisherman who vied with Nicolas Cage's title character for the affections of the desirable Pelagia (Penelope Cruz). Captain Corelli's Mandolin was Bale's second time working with John Hurt, after All the Little Animals.

Bale returned in 2004 to play Trevor Reznik, the title character in the psychological thriller The Machinist. Bale gained attention for his devotion to the role and for the lengths to which he went to achieve Reznik's emaciated, skeletal appearance. He went without proper rest for prolonged periods, and placed himself on a crash diet of generally coffee and apples, which reduced his weight by 63 pounds (4 st 4 lb/27 kg) in a matter of months. By the end of filming Bale weighed only 121 pounds (8 st 9 lb/55 kg), a transformation he described as "very calming mentally" and which drew comparisons to Robert De Niro's alternate weight-gaining regimen for his role as Jake LaMotta in the 1980 film Raging Bull. Bale claimed that he had not worked for a period of time before he was cast in the film. "...I just hadn't found scripts that I'd really been interested in. So I was really dying for something to arrive. Then when this one did, I just didn't want to put it down. I finished it and, upon the kind of revelation that you get at the end, I immediately wanted to go back and re-visit it, to take a look at what clues I could have gotten throughout". The Machinist was a low-budget production, costing roughly US$5 million to produce, and was given only a limited US release. It was well received critically with the review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes reporting that 75% of the critics' reviews tallied were positive.

ll of the muscles were gone, so that was a real tough time of rebuilding all of that. But you have a deadline, you have an obligation. You've said that you will commit to this part, and I just can't live with myself for not really giving it as much as I can.Christian Bale

An actor should never be larger than the film he's in.Christian Bale

And being as I'm somebody who loves movies like The Machinist, I also love going along to big mass entertainment movies. I get in the mood for all kinds of movies, and so I like to try each of them.Christian Bale

But I enjoyed getting sick, I didn't mind it at all. So in that short amount of time, I did actually go from 121 right back up to 180, which is way too fast obviously. And that resulted in some doctors visits to get things sorted out.Christian Bale

Essentially, I'm untrained, so I just go with my imagination and try to put myself as solidly as I can into the shoes of whatever person I'm going to be playing.Christian Bale

I don't personally look to my own life experiences for answers about how to play a scene.Christian Bale

I don't think I'm like any of the characters I've played - they're all really far from who I am.Christian Bale

I have a fear of being boring.Christian Bale

I only sound intelligent when there's a good script writer around.Christian Bale

I tend to think you're fearless when you recognize why you should be scared of things, but do them anyway.Christian Bale

I think trying too hard to be sexy is the worst thing in the world a woman can do.Christian Bale

I went backwards and forwards over it until I was 22. And then in the past few years I began to say to myself, OK, look, I'm not messing around. This is something I want to attack, instead of thinking, I'll just see what happens with it.Christian Bale

I've had some painful experiences in my life, but I feel like I'm trivializing them by using them for a scene in a movie. I don't want to do that. It just makes me feel kind of dirty for having done that.Christian Bale

If everyone really knew what a jerk I am in real life, I wouldn't be so adored in the slightest.Christian Bale

It's about pursuing it rather than waiting to see what comes along. That's partly because I found myself getting typecast, as everyone does unless they pursue roles that are very different from what they've done before.Christian Bale

It's not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me.Christian Bale

It's the actors who are prepared to make fools of themselves who are usually the ones who come to mean something to the audience.Christian Bale

My hope is that people will be repulsed by the character's complete lack of ethics and obsession with consumerism - that's what I was saying about the difference between the character's message and the film's message.Christian Bale

No, only disappointment in myself on those occasions I didn't manage to rise to the occasion as I felt I should've done. I can always see how to do it, and then the challenge is, Can I manage that each and every day?Christian Bale

Obviously there are times with acting when exactly what is required is just going through the motions, and when doing nothing is the best thing. But at other times, you have to make that leap beyond the immediate environment of people putting up lights on the set.Christian Bale

It's the birthday of poet and novelist Richard Gary Brautigan, born in Tacoma, Washington (1935). His work was introduced to me by pal, Doug Palmer, a couple of years ago, and there are dozens of his poem on this site. He moved to San Francisco, where he read his poetry at psychedelic rock concerts, helped produce underground newspapers, and became involved with the Beat Movement. He had long blond hair and granny glasses.

In the summer of 1961, he went camping with his wife and young daughter in Idaho's Stanley Basin. He spent his days hiking, and it was there, sitting next to trout streams with his portable typewriter, that he wrote his most famous work, Trout Fishing in America (1967).

Brautigan was raised in poverty; he told his daughter stories of his mother sifting rat feces from their supply of flour to make flour-and-water pancakes. Because of Brautigan's impoverished childhood, he and his family found it difficult to obtain food, and on some occasions they did not eat for days. He lived with his family on welfare and moved about the Pacific Northwest for nine years before the family settled in Eugene, Oregon in August 1944. Many of Brautigan's childhood experiences were included in the poems and stories that he wrote from as early as the age of 12. His novel So the Wind Won't Blow It All Away is loosely based on childhood experiences including an incident where Brautigan accidentally shot the brother of a close friend in the ear, injuring him only slightly.

On September 12, 1950, Brautigan enrolled at South Eugene High School, having graduated from Woodrow Wilson Junior High School. He was a writer for his high school newspaper South Eugene High School News. He also played on his school's basketball team, standing 6 feet 4 inches tall (1.93 m) by the time of his graduation. On December 19, 1952, Brautigan's first published poem, The Light, appeared in the South Eugene High School newspaper. Brautigan graduated with honors from South Eugene High School on June 9, 1953. Following graduation, he moved in with his best friend Peter Webster, and Peter's mother Edna Webster became Brautigan's surrogate mother. According to several accounts Brautigan stayed with Webster for about a year before leaving for San Francisco for the first time in August 1954. He returned to Oregon several times, apparently for lack of money.

On December 14, 1955, Brautigan was arrested for throwing a rock through a police-station window, supposedly in order to be sent to prison and fed. He was arrested for disorderly conduct and fined $25. He was then committed to the Oregon State Hospital on December 24, 1955, after police noticed patterns of erratic behavior.

At the Oregon State Hospital Brautigan was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and clinical depression, and was treated with electroconvulsive therapy 12 times. While institutionalized, he began writing The God of the Martians, a manuscript of 20 very short chapters totaling 600 words. The manuscript was sent to at least two editors but was rejected by both, and remains unpublished (A copy of the manuscript was recently discovered with the papers of the last of these editors, Harry Hooton.) On February 19, 1956, Brautigan was released from hospital and briefly lived with his mother, stepfather, and siblings in Eugene, Oregon. He then left for San Francisco, where he would spend most of the rest of his life except for periods in Tokyo and Montana.

All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds.Richard Brautigan

I didn't know the full dimensions of forever, but I knew it was longer than waiting for Christmas to come.Richard Brautigan

I don't want my daughter to be educated. I think women should just be decorative.Richard Brautigan

I'll think about things for thirty or forty years before I'll write it.Richard Brautigan

I'm in a constant process of thinking about things.Richard Brautigan

It's strange how the simple things in life go on while we become more difficult.Richard Brautigan

Probably the closest things to perfection are the huge absolutely empty holes that astronomers have recently discovered in space. If there's nothing there, how can anything go wrong?Richard Brautigan

After midnight the blizzard howls itself out,the wind sleeps, a tired lover.Before bed, I think of youand play the Meistersinger quintetover and over, singingalong on all the parts,dancing though the houselike a polar bear who thinksit has joined the ballet.You are in my arms, dancing too;whirling from room to room;frost crusted on the windowbegins to glow like lit up faces.My five fingers, now on firelike these five voices singing,imagine touching the skinover your shoulders

1.Small armed bands routinely patrol Falcon State Park. With cameras on one shoulder and binoculars around their necks these grey-haired soldiers patrol the trails and roads in small groups, seeking their prey. When someone spots their quarry they huddle around a small book and debate the identity of the creature. Often this ends in agreement, but can lead to discord in the group. Individuals sometimes go out on patrol alone, seeking to surprise their quarry by stealth.

These troopers keep notebooks with long lists of the names of their targets. Often a joyous shout is heard when a new name is added to the list.

2.Small armed bands routinely patrol Falcon State Park.With cameras on one shoulderand binoculars around their necksthese grey-haired soldiers patrol the trailsand roads in small groups, seeking their prey.When someone spots their quarrythey huddle around a small bookand debate the identity of the creature.Often this ends in agreement,but can lead to discord in the group.Individuals sometimes go out on patrol alone,seeking to surprise their quarry by stealth.

These troopers keep notebooks with long listsof the names of their targets.Often a joyous shout is heard whena new name is added to the list.

This is a rough sketch of the crankier side of the male psyche done in bear-form. I've spent many years studying and evaluating the test subject (i.e. me) to come to these conclusions. I hope it can be of some use to others.

1. Mumbley Bear: This describes a state of slight grouchiness stemming from such causes as sickness, hangover, or loud children. Characteristics include confusion, slight detachment, and crabby looks. Mumbley Bears are somewhat sullen and withdrawn, but not viciously so. They will communicate, but not very well. It's a bad idea to pounce on Mumbley Bears with a lot of demands or whining, especially before they've had tea or coffee and a little bit of breakfast. Once a Mumbley Bear has had a little bit of peace and quiet and some toast, they will be fit for human interaction.

2. Smart-Ass Bear: The causes of this condition vary but usually include consumption of too much alcohol along with other factors including: a rough day at work, a general feeling of unease resulting from a lack of accomplished goals, seeing some asshole succeeding when I'm stuck here in the muck, etc. This state is somewhat deceptive in that Smart-Ass Bear can appear very outgoing, though his crabbiness will make itself apparent by the nature of his jibes and comments. If given too much attention, Smart-Ass Bear will reveal his crankiness, leading to rude behavior and sullenness. Once Smart-Ass Bear has had some time to think about things, he tends to end up apologizing to everyone or just throwing up.

3. Black-Stare Bear: Almost always spurred by financial and/or job concerns, Black-Stare Bear is given to bouts of dangerously quiet introspection. It's a bad idea to let Black-Stare Bear near anything breakable, because he tends to be aggressive and clumsy. Black-Stare Bear is best sent away to perform tedious tasks so no one else has to deal with him until he gets over it. Also known as "Fuck-It Bear" or "I'm Surrounded By Assholes Bear".

4. Blood-Tooth Murder Bear: A rare but dangerous bear to be avoided at all costs. Not much is known about Blood-Tooth Murder Bear because sightings are so rare. Perhaps it is created from a fusion of traffic, bills, sexual frustration, and personal failure. Perhaps it is hormonal in nature. Regardless, Blood-Tooth Murder Bear is territorial and may attack anyone hapless enough to wander near. Blood-Tooth Murder Bear craves solitude and is, in every way, tired of your shit. Blood-Tooth Murder Bear cannot be tamed or reasoned with. He will rip your fucking throat out if you don't shut up and leave him the hell alone. No one wants to be around a Blood-Tooth Murder Bear, not even himself.

Spending over a thousand bucksfor a box spring and mattress, alwayspisses me off, every decade or so--even though my bulk has createda form-fitting crevice on my sideand everything rolls to the center;even as back and neck aches aremuch too morning prevalent, evenwhen informercials late at nightshow blow-up photos of the dreadeddust mites that gorge themselveson my constantly shedding skin cells,after flipping the mattress 57 timesevery which way to find the level--and then there is the eternal quandaryabout “which” mattress to buy,a waterbed or the sleep-number mattress,or the bowling ball mattress, or the onewith the wine glass that will not spillas a child leaps up and down beside it?

must-haves for a newwriting desk if youmust have a writingdesk –a rain puddle, worncoins, a set ofkeys, an unflinchingstare, desire, a boltof lightning,a very oldor newcity, a trainride untilthe path is clear.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

supported by the sameresilient timbre, responsivebranch, each blossomgrows and unfoldsinto its ownweight –the way you and ican look in the samedirection, beon the same page,yet draw suchdifferent constellations.

Friday, January 28, 2011

There is an easier way for particlesas overweight and slow as you or Ito turn the trick. Go West, young man! How fast?Bit faster than the Earth rotates aroundits axis. The clocks will say you’ve reached your goalbefore you started out. But you’ll be jetlagged,sandbagged’s how you’ll feel. Is there an upside?Sure! Begin your trip just after sunrise.Then, every time you stop, face East and wait!You’ll see Old Sol jump-start your day again.And if you’re smart and fast enough you mightsqueeze umpteen sun-ups into twenty fourshort hours. But the folk just waking upwill scarce have time to see you whizzing by.Hard work on the Equator. Further North –Or South, from Oslo, say, or Santiagoyou’d only need to saunter round the globe.P.S. This works for sunsets too. Head East!

Superior gardens are composed of Glooms and Solitudesand not of plants and trees.

A liberal’s compost heap is his castle.

Solitude in gardens is an aspect of scale.

Certain gardens are described as retreatswhen they are really attacks.

Ecology is Nature-Philosophy secularised.

Gardening activity is of five kinds, namely,sowing, planting, fixing, placing, maintaining.In so far as gardening is an Art,all these may be taken under the one head,composing.

Better than truth to materials is truth to intelligence.

The inscription seems out of place in the modern garden.It jars on our secularism by suggestingthe hierarchies of the word.

Brown made water and lawns (&c.)Palladian elements, as much as Lord Burlington did,his columns and porticos.

Brown made water appear as Water, and lawn as Lawn.

The gardens of Kent and Brown were mistakenlyreferred to the Chinese aesthetic,just as today’s thoughtful gardensare considered to be Japanese.'Japanese garden’ has come to signify no morethan ‘art garden’. The contemporary ‘sculpture park’ is not –and is not considered to be – an art garden,but an art gallery out-of-doors.It is a parody of the classical garden native to the West.

The main division of gardens is intoart gardens and botanical gardens.Compared to this division all the others –‘The Garden as Music’, ‘The Garden as a Poem’ -& etc. – are superficial.

A bench, in our modern gardens,is a thing to be sat upon;in Shenstone’s Leasowes it was a thing to be read.

As public sex was embarrassing to the Victorians,public classicism is to us.

Composition is a forgotten Art.

Artificial gardens – as Lamb describes them –now strike us as not at all artificial,since they have been made ‘natural’ by time.

Some places out beyond the hills and seas,Where no man has ever been,In a far off place where dreams come true,and there is only love and peace,There I stand,All alone.Not a soul has seen what I have,A place in only my mind and heart,where anything is possible,There I stand.The only one to witness that it is truely there is I.And though it is not real for others,I stand alone.I can make it be anything I want it to,But I do not,I let it stay as it is,a far off land no one knows.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

I could hear the voice echoing around me, I could suddenly see a smooth path before my feet. I even seemed to see an arrow in the sky, pointing to the right. But the road was open in front of me, while, on the right, was a hill whose top disappeared into the clouds.

"This way is the right way, the other way is the wrong way," the voice insisted.

But I was tired, and the hill was I-knew-not-how-high. Surely, if there were a town nearby, it would be somewhere along the road ahead of me, possibly behind those trees at the end of the lake, I reasoned, so I hesitated.

"He who hesitates is lost," said another voice, probably the one in my own head.

The smooth path in front of my feet shimmered for a moment, then disappeared. The arrow, which couldn't possibly have been real, disappeared also.I continued along the road in the direction I'd been traveling all day. Exhausted, I slipped. Unable to regain my balance, I fell, and tumbled downhill toward the lake. As I felt the ice break under my weight, I heard the voice again.

"This way was the right way, your way was the wrong way."

As I felt the cold water closing around me, I looked up, and saw a castle appear as the clouds rose away from the top of the hill. Castles are built on hills to discourage newcomers.

"Will you let me walk you home?"She looked at the twilight outsideand nodded. An inch of freshly fallensnow pristine on the ground.We walked that old familiar pathlike the first people on earth, or the last;every step a venture into the unknown.All along I tried to imaginewhat her lips would feel likesoftly pressed against mine - moist,not chapped as they appeared.We spoke of other things:an upcoming class trip, chemistry,and what our last summer would be like."See ya", we said at her dooryard gate.Then the walk home. The walk home.

She cried. In her mind – for her form and substance had been stolen – she cried for a very long time before the crying turned to hopeless weeping and then quiet whimpering. Was it months? Years? Moments? It was hard to say. She was trapped in a slime-covered boulder wedged in the runoff from the hot springs. The natural hot springs were located downhill from the elevated section of county road that followed the bends in the river. If she could see she would have recognized the place from the many visits there with her family. She could not see. Neither could she feel nor hear nor smell nor use any of her physical senses.

The smooth, black, granite river boulder she was trapped inside was wedged where the hot, mineral-laden water streamed into the icy waters of the river carrying snow melt and spring water down from the mountains. In her rock she was pure essence of Corinna, pure emotional and psychic content. Her memory and personality were intact but she herself was without shape or form or freedom. The stone was now her body, tumbled smooth by the eons, continually etched and scarred and smoothed again. The slime of bright green algae trailed away from the rock’s surface, undulating in the warm, trickling, burbling stream.

But she saw none of this, nor could she hear the running water, the birdcalls, the voices of children and grown-ups enjoying the hot springs. She knew only fear and the fear chilled her essence. She was exhausted. She would be three in July. Perhaps she was three already.

She was still learning language when she was torn from her family. She was a quick learner, surprising those around her as she moved quickly from single words to phrases to sentences and then paragraphs. Her grasp of ideas and concepts were childlike but still astonishing for a little girl not even three years old. Everyone agreed that she was a rare child but none of her giftedness prepared her for the sudden terror of waking up alone, blind and disembodied, in absolute silence and in space the color of unlit absolute nothingness Was her situation hopeless? Could nothing save her? Was her best and kindest hope for insanity so sudden, so overpowering it extinguished all memory and consciousness? Lesser insanities would merely make an endless streaming hell of memory and love.

To have salvation come from an altogether different quarter was something her kidnappers never imagined and therefore never prepared against. She was a child concealed in a place beyond the natural order. Nor did her anguished family imagine she could be anything but lost to them. They found the girl missing from her room. Seeing the horrific mess of human blood the kidnappers spilled and spread about in order to deceive did its work. Wish otherwise as they might the parents could only believe their child dead, an innocent victim of senseless brutality. Neither kidnappers nor family nor investigating authorities imagined the natural world might have a natural interest in recovering its own, mush less the ability to do so. None imagined that in the deepest part of the child’s heart images older than humankind were taking shape and rumbling voice and calling to their own in the hearts and essences of the land and water creatures now nosing around the girl.

The plan of the kidnappers had always been to steal the girl and park her essence inside a rock until she went totally, irretrievably insane. Then, in the guise of rescuers, return the gibbering, raving child to her parents, forcing them to recognize the depths of horror she had suffered and to wish instead for the quick and merciful death they had previously dreaded. As the cloaked enemy, the kidnapper’s hatred of this family knew no bounds; it was implacable, remorseless and only wanted the family dead, all its lines and branches snuffed. First though, they wanted to hear screaming and keening and to see suffering to the very extreme of death. And then they wanted suicides.

If it weren’t for the turtles, the minnows and trout, the birds and field mice and beaver nosing about the girl the enemy would have had its satisfaction. But destiny hiccuped and lost its place when Corinna suddenly became aware of sentient life and interest surrounding her, aware of her, moving closer. Beyond the motile, individual life forms the larger web of life pulsed with gathering light. The awareness of all this display of interest and power pulled her from her hysteria. The life about her was curious and warm. It circled, moved and nuzzled her and she forgot herself completely – no sobbing, no hiccupy transition; just a fine and instantaneous focusing of her attention. She thought as a child for her mind was a child’s mind, but it was an extremely sharp one, and exceptionally strong.

In the darkness she suddenly saw moving colors and shapes. Inside the colors and shapes she saw pulsing holograms of hearts and veins, capillaries and arteries. Cold and warm blooded creatures came to her as if with one mind. She knew their quickening interest, saw fiery leaps across synaptic chasms, watched intention and feedback race across interconnected neural networks, whole galaxies lighting up, dimming, lighting again at the speed of intuition, recognition, knowing. She saw small moving bodies as dazzling electrical fields and she saw what few humans could – the dynamic, responsive fields and reaching tendrils that extended far beyond the physical boundaries of the bodies of the creatures nosing about her.

Awestruck she watched creation’s pulse, its essential waves and cross-currents as they swept and combed the life-forms around her. Life had given her new eyes, and she used them as if she had always known how. Life had also given her its undivided attention and she responded, shedding fear and terror like dried husks of a chrysalis. She was at a perfect age to respond, to wrestle free of the no longer useful and to thrive. Squeezing through unyielding hardship to meet the life around her strained and stretched the damp, curled wings of her human potential. She was at a perfect age, developmentally, to change. She was at a perfect age and in the perfect circumstances to find her wings and learn to use them.

And change she did, and though she could not have put any of this into words she found the recognition she sought. She saw that she was neither abandoned nor forgotten. She found the security she, and perhaps all humans, craved. She found she was no longer held by the binding spell for she was no longer the same person who had been bound. She was still essence, presence, life and awareness; she was still content without form but she was changed. The frightening void of her entrapment was now filled with color, presence and movement and she was motile. The rock released her and the world welcomed her back. The images released from her heart’s depths flowed effortlessly, endlessly.

When she once again had hands and fingers, elbows and toes, words and images would flow from her mouth, her toes, her fingertips. She would conjure worlds, languages, dances and spells, she would weave mythic histories and fill creation with the missing stories, stories, stories. Stories and more stories; some to light like butterflies, others to bomb to earth like hummingbirds attracting mates. Those things would happen, but first she had to get her body back and find her parents and for all of this Corinna was going to have to find her brother and enlist his help.

They all told her to follow the routeto the left of the woods.'Take the path to the left, it leadsto a clearing where bluebells grow in spring', they said.'The road to the right is uphilland brambles will scratch your pretty faceand you may find yourself lost and frightened.Your heartbeat will race and you will findyour old childhood fairy talesspring from your imagination,the wolf might get you !.Please take the road to the left',

they said, until it became like a prayer.

'My love takes the road to the right', she said.I will risk the bramblesand the darkness of my imagination.I will slay the wolf,my love is leading, I must follow'.

They must wait in the clearing to the left of the wood,the mother gathering bluebellsto pin to her daughter's dress.She would return, sometime soon,when the teen years are past.Mothers are good at waiting.

"Life, like reporting, is a kind of death sentence.Pardon me for having lived it so fully."--John Ross

Coming out of the undergroundOn the BART escalator,The Mission skyIs washed by autumn,The old men and their garbage bagsAre clustered in the battered plazaWe once named for Cesar Augusto Sandino.Behind me down belowIn the throat of the earthA rough bracero singsOf his comings and goingsIn a voice as ronco y dulceAs the mountains of Michoacan and JaliscoFor the white zombiesCareening downtownTo the dot coms.They are trying to kick usOut of hereAgainThey are trying to drainThis neighborhood of colorOf colorAgain.This time we are not moving on.We are going to stick to this barrioLike the posters so fiercely pastedTo the walls of La MisionWith iron glueThat they will have to take them downBrick by brickTo make us go awayAnd even then our ghostsWill come homeAnd turn those bricksInto weaponsAnd take back our streetsBrick by brickAnd song by songRonco y dulceAs Jalisco and MichaocanManagua, Manila, RamallahPine Ridge, Vietnam, and Africa.As my compa QR sayWe here now motherfuckersTell the Klan and the NazisAnd the Real Estate vampiresTo catch the next BART out of hereFor Hell.

John Ross

"Then there was John. Even in his seventies, a tall imposing figure with a narrow face, a scruffy goatee and mustache, a Che T-shirt covered by a Mexican vest, a Palestinian battle scarf thrown around his neck, bags of misery and compassion under his eyes, offset by his wonderful toothless smile and the cackling laugh that punctuated his comical riffs on the miserable state of the universe."--Frank Bardacke, in the Nation

“You are not going to the disco, and that’s final. I don’t care how many of your friends are allowed to go, you are not going. You are too young, ask us in a year or so and we’ll think again.”

Brother and sister were crushed. They’d told their friends that they’d all go together to the rave to be held in a large barn on the outskirts of the local town, just four miles away from their village.

The place was called ‘Escape’ and that’s what it appeared to be to the village kids, a place where you could get away from boring adults and their restrictions.

Gretel stamped her foot. “I hate them”, she wailed, “they never let us do anything. I bet Hannah’s Mum lets her go.”

Hansel scowled. “Serve them right if we just went without their stupid permission.”

The seed was sown.

The Saturday of the rave was bright and cold. There’d been snow overnight, the countryside looked cheerful and inviting in the sunshine.

Still sore, Hansel and Gretel kept to their rooms after lunch. Mum was busy in the kitchen and Dad was tinkering in the garage. The party was to start at four pm and last till seven, when the kids who’d been allowed to go would be picked up and ferried home again.

Hansel burst into Gretel’s room. “Come on, get your coat on, we’re going,” he commanded. Gretel was ready for him, she’d already got her sparkly silver top on under her jumper and her black leggins under her jeans. “If we go now, by the path through the wood and across Farmer Giles’ field, we’ll get there by four. We’ll cadge a lift home and Mum and Dad will never know that we’ve been out.”

They sneaked out by the French doors into the garden and ran. As planned they got to the barn in good time, the music had only just started and not many of their friends had arrived as early as they had. But a group of much older boys and girls from the town were there, standing at one end of the barn in private huddles, with a skinny, tall boy going from group to group, handing them something.

Gretel stared. “They’re not meant to be here.” she said curiously. “They’re a bit old, aren’t they,” she added. Hannah agreed. “Keep away from them, they’re bad news. Some of them are druggies.”

Gretel shuddered. She soon forgot all about them as she started dancing with the other girls, all of them in a circle, with the boys doing their own thing somewhere else. She felt a little guilty at having come without permission, but where was the harm; she and Hansel would be home again soon, with Mum and Dad none the wiser.

The music got louder, the barn heated up and the girls stopped for a drink of water. The tall boy was loitering by the improvised bar. He eyed Gretel, who was tall and looked older than her fourteen years, appreciatively. “Fancy a little booster?” he asked. “Ever tried it?” Gretel found it hard to get away from him in the crush. “Here you are, have a bit, just a quarter won’t do you any harm. Try it, it’s free.”

He took her by the arm and manhandled her out of the crush by the bar. and out by the barn door. “Get off me, let go of my arm, I don’t want your booster.” She was alarmed now. He gripped her a little harder. “Come on, be nice, have a little fun.”

Suddenly, Hansel appeared. He was only thirteen and much smaller than the tall boy. “Hey, leave my sister alone”, he shouted; the tall boy turned and laughed. “Says who?” Hansel threw a feeble punch at him. The boy side-stepped him and laughed louder, letting go of Gretel’s arm. Furiously, Hansel picked up a thick broomstick leaning against the barn wall. He swung it, hitting the tall boy on the side of his head. At the same time Gretel shoved him hard and the boy staggered and fell back into the snow, momentarily winded.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Gretel said, “home, Hansel.” They ran to pick up their coats and legged it, back through Farmer Giles’ field and into the woods that would lead them home.

Gretel could have sworn that she saw a large pale arrow pointing them homewards, back on the right path.

not to shoot the neighbor’s dog,though it needs a bullet badly;not to run any more yellow lights,as those damned cameras nail you every time;not to rail so vehemently against winter,for it garners no results--it’s likethrowing a sock full of cat shit at the moon;not to buy a good digital cameraand learn how to use it properlyuntil Summer, even thoughimages beckon and icons lurkbehind headstones and junk yard fences;not to purchase flowers weekly for my wife,because even beauty can become boringand love’s flames only need so much fanning;not to wait another full year beforecontacting my brother, for we are bothold men now and need to hug more often;not to pine for that pistol,the .357 Ruger revolverthat haunts my dreams;not to give up seeking Sasquatchfor he waits patientlyfor our encounter to come.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

In 1965, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO made a tonof money, more than all the other David Leanfilms lumped together, but it was created inits own chaos, and its production blemishesand secrets were covered up in make up andcostume, conspiracies, politics, and egos.

Everyone wanted to shoot it in Russia,but the regime of Alexei Koyginwould not allow an imperialist filmbased on a banned novel to befilmed there, so the cameras wereset up mostly in Spain, with someshots done in Finland substituting for Siberia.The finished film, considered a classiclove story, was not shown in theSoviet Union until 1994.

Carlo Ponti bought the rights to the novel,and then hired the entire production crewwho had made LAWRENCE OF ARABIA,wanting to cast his wife, Sophia Loren,to play Lara-- but Lean turned her down, saying“She was too damned tall.”

David Lean wanted Peter O’Toole to play Yuri,but O’Toole was still angry about the experiencehe had with Lean on LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.The producers wanted Albert Finney to play Yuri,but Lean was still angry at him for turning downthe title role in LAWRENCE. Later Dirk Bogardeand Max Von Sydow were considered for Yuri.Lean wanted Marlon Brando to play Komarovsky,but Brando never returned his calls, soJames Mason was cast, later dropping out beforeRod Steiger snagged the role.

Jane Fonda, Yvette Mimieux, and Sarah Mileswere all approached to play Lara, but Leanhad seen BILLY LIAR, and politicked for JulieChristie, wisely. He wanted Audrey Hepburnto play Tonya, but was so impressed withnewcomer Geraldine Chaplin’s audition,he cast her on the spot.

Pasha: They rode them down, Lara--women andchildren, begging for bread. There will be no morepeaceful demonstrations.

The Moscow scenes were shot in Canillas,a suburb of Madrid, on a ten acre site, witha replica of the Kremlin stately towering.

Gromeko: They’ve shot the Czar and all his family.What a savage deed. What’s it for?Zhivago: It’s to show there’s no going back.

Tagline: A love caught in the fire of revolution.

Now let’s see, Yuri, the good doctor, was marriedto Tonya, an aristocrat. Lara was married to Pasha,who left her to become a revolutionary. Komarovskylusted after Lara, and Lara became the muse forYuri as poet, star-crossed love mired in theblood bath of dialectical materialism.

While shooting in Spain in 1964, this was stillthe regime of Gen. Francisco Franco, who senthis secret police to hang around the set, andinfiltrate the crowd scenes. During a major crowdscene shot at 3 a.m., the extras were singingthe Revolutionary Internationale so loudly,townsfolk came out of their homes mistakenlybelieving that Franco had been overthrown.

Pasha: Yuri, I used to admire your poetry, but I shouldnot admire it now. The personal life is dead. Historykilled it.

At nineteen years old, watching the film,I did not like Omar Sharif’s watery eyes orArabic accent, and I felt that Julie Christiehad been better in John Ford’s YOUNG CASSIDY--but I did enjoy the fantasy of somedaybecoming a writer, and the spirit ofrevolution was rampant midst themelodrama and twisted history lesson,better served years later in Warren Beatty’sREDS. I was raised in a very liberal family,and the patriots of this drama seemedcontrived and pale to me.

Still some semblance of sanity prevailed,and decades later most of us rememberthe romance, the tragic love story, andhave let the limp politics loose in the wind.Even the Academy sensed the truth,only giving Oscars for cinematography,screenplay, and musical score--honoringnone of the acting, directing, or popularity;and we are left with a salient fact--Varykino is actually a city to the westof Moscow, but it is not to the eastin Siberia as the film portrays.

You stop the caralong the frozen Sciotoand point to deer trackson the ice. I imagine a timid doecoaxed across the brittle riverby her partner, in naked,fragile love. Alone,in the exposition of cold,we are Lara and Zhivago,enveloped by lust and white,on a silent ride to Varykino.Reins lace your gloved fingers,my hands; all of me in your pocket.We thrust, slow, unable to see pastthe crosshatch of blue ashand sycamore, catalysts for hope,and wonder how this fluxcan remain without time, unbodied,this fresh, uncorrupted rush,the calling card of winter.

Tess KincaidJanuary, 2011

Posted over on her site Willow Manor Listed as #1 over on Magpie Tales 50

tied rebel yells to their truck antennaswhen they cruised the loop at Sonic.They drove up slow and made surethey weren’t alone before turning in.Couldn’t be too safe from gangs,they said. If they caught a black kid alone,they’d drop off their girlfriends for safetyand follow him, force his car into the parking lotof the old Jitney-Jungle, two, three trucksfull of grinning, yellow-toothed white boyswith bats, brass knuckles, wrenches. A couplecarried ropes for a joke. Mostly, they’d laughwhile the black kids beat feet.

In the school parking lot, they untied the flagsfrom their trucks so they wouldn’t be suspendedand stalked the halls bragging about the tooth-necklacesthey were going to collect as soon as somebodystood his ground. They talked about getting tattoosbut couldn’t decide between crossesor flags—they needed something to set them apart.They’d never hide their dignity under hoodslike their daddies, they said, never marchon city hall to be ridiculed. They smoked cigarettesin the parking lot, picked fightswith the skinny freshmen, but dropped their eyeswhen the older black kids strode by.

sail a child like a ship out on the seaanchor her with love, then set her freehear the splashing of the sprayas she goes laughing on her waysail a child to sea.

sail a child and your heart around the worldtiny, shiny angel dancing girlstand upon the windy shorewhere so many have stood beforesail her ’round the world

can it really be that little speckout on the sea is your daughter?you knew there’d come a daywhen she would sail awaybut it seems too soonoh, your little baby on the waterpulled away by love and tides and moons

sail a child wherever she will dreamfar away on waves of blue and greentrust the stars to lead her wayand sail her safely home one daysail a child who dreams

is not one of these tidy placesyou see on TV or in ads,it’s full of junk, gardening tools,two thirds empty cans of paint,shelves with bottles of home-made wine,sacks of dog food and bird food,large terracotta pots and tubsthat would crack if left outside in winter,yard brooms, etc. It all works.Everything is stackedand shoe-horned in and secured,and there is enough room for the car too,provided you snap back the wing mirrorsand stop when you hit the tennis ballhanging from the ceiling on a string at one endand line up the front right hand car doorexactly with the door leading into the workroom.It’s easy. A child could do it.

My grandmother was a beauty, apparently. She was six feet tall and had jet black hair and brown eyes. She lived in the North west of Ireland in a beautiful mountainous place called Donegal, where they speak in a lilting accent that contains woodsmoke and mountain air. Even today, it hasn't changed much.

Mary-Anne was a beauty inside and out. We never met unless you count the hours I gazed upon her photos, sepia coloured Mary-Anne. As a child, I always wondered what she would look like in colour? Why was she trapped in forever 'sepia'?.

Mary-Anne was a great story-teller, in Irish a 'seanachai'. She would walk miles to visit family and friends and knock on the door and spend hours at other people's fires spinning tales and making people laugh and cry with her stories.

She married a soldier located in the barracks close to her home, a grey stoned building overlooking the wild Atlantic ocean. 'Next stop, New York', the locals would say.She married my grandfather, a blue eyed soldier and they moved inland. He was an orphan and had been raised by what people referred to as a 'spinster aunt' in those days. She had been a nanny in the States and returned to take over his care. Mary-Anne became his family, this beautiful, warm-hearted girl with a wicked sense of humour.

On her grave, each spring, daffodils grow. Even in death, Mary-Anne brings joy.

I imagine her somewhere, sitting by a fire, spinning tales and mischief making.I hope I can continue her story-telling here, I think Mary-Anne might have liked that.I think she would approve of a little mischief making.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

It can be hard to do the hustlewhile wearing a bustle, though I thinkI remember Mae West doing it several timeswhile crossing a room in front of Cary Grant--no, maybe it was little Miss Alice Fayein LILLIAN RUSSELL, or IN OLD CHICAGO--or was it Jeanette MacDonald shaking it withclass in NAUGHTY MARIETTA, or in THEMERRY WIDOW, or was it Ava Gardner movinglike a gazelle in rut in SHOWBOAT?

George Bernard Shaw once said after seeingMargaret Leighton in costume for his playARMS AND THE MAN, “A woman wearinga bustle was like watching a snail wear a dress.”

Women of the Victorian era wore that bustle,masking their natural charms with a fashionablebubble butt, moving from voluminous crinolineto a pronounced hump shape at the backof the skirt--looking like an Al Capp cartoonrendition of the perfect hourglass figure--posterior just as protruding as bosom.

Most of us are unabashed proud pygophilists,but men specifically can let loose of reason,and become so distracted they fall over furnitureor crash their car while staring at a young ladywith a shapely backside.

My own puberty emerged during the 1950’swhen a large bust and ample posterior werethe apex of eros, the height of sexuality--Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Sophia Loren;the lexicon of tight skirts was inexhaustible.

The bulky bustle was replaced with the girdle,and thanks be to the lingerie gods that the girdlewas replaced with no-line pantie hose, bikinipanties, and skin-tight trousers and shorts--so that the boys on the corner can gawk,pop their gum, wolf-call, whistle, pant, clap,and snap pics with their cell phones whileinevitably the conversation rotates to the bottom;“Damn dude, did you see the derriere, backside,butt, booty, bootie, bottom, breech, bum, buns,ass, sweet cheeks, caboose, can, buttocks, duff,fanny, hams, haunches, heinie, nates, keister,keester, posterior, rear end, rump, seat, tail,tush, tushie, tuchis, glutes, aft, stern, or poopon that babe?”

“Yeah man, I’m afraid to move since there’s noblood left in my head and I may pass out!”

And most probably none of the smitten willhave ever set eyes upon the famousGeorge Seurat painting, “A Sunday Afternoon onthe Island of La Grande Jatte”, where the bustledladies strolled with their frilly parasols and huge hats,and received the same results in 1901.

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